“Reaping What We’ve Sown”

April 13, 2012 — Carolyn Speranza

Lisa Link and Io Palmer invited me to participate in their Serve & Project, an interdisciplinary collaborative public arts project seeking dinner napkins from creative thinkers around the world. Part of their curatorial vision is that while food references sustenance it also represents social and political issue.

“Reaping What We’ve Sown,” below, is my contribution to the project. The napkins are linen, initially dyed with chamomile tea, and then painted on, with a sumi brush and ink, and finally, the digital imagery was ironed on. My thoughts about food these days range from the young girls, pre- child labor laws, shelling shrimp in Louisiana for the rest of us to eat – to – Monsanto corn – to – the overfishing of our oceans. Statistically, the size of fish/shellfish has dropped astronomically over the past century, due to over-fishing. This food landscape painting is about 52″ long, 17″ high. Here is a detailed view:

No one here listens to me when I try to explain chemicals in the food and all this other stuff that is bad for you. Trevor just doesn’t believe it even though his family has a lot of health issues due to diet and now not sure the kids listen. So, here is what I made, with my emails from the Environmental Working Group – fighting to get BPA out of cans….